With the collapse of numerous supposedly secure cryptocurrency financial companies – Celsius, Three Arrows and Voyager to name a few – it has become starkly apparent that the ‘not your keys, not your coins’ mantra has a great deal of validity to it. Coupled with the increasingly invasive KYC that some companies are obliged to request to provide services, having your own hardware wallet is quite an attractive idea. A hardware wallet provides the user with the security of a cold wallet, but with many useful features in terms of viewing coins and moving them around. This article will briefly look at Trezor, one of the older and more established hardware (offline) wallets that has stood the test of time.
Trezor – A Brief History.
The first generation of Trezor was released in July 2014. It was developed by Satoshi Labs, a company based in Prague. Both Trezors software and hardware are open source, giving access to all who wish to view the programming. Since its inception it has not been hacked, except by a ‘white hat’ which exposed a flaw to be corrected, and it was. However, quite unforgivably, it did suffer a leak of its users’ email addresses. Many users, over 100 000 suffered phishing. Given that it prides itself on security, perhaps it would have been wiser not to give details of users emails to a third party. Nonetheless, in terms of funds being stolen, to my knowledge nobody has successfully done anything of the kind. Trezor remains one of the top choices as a hardware wallet.
Getting Your Trezor
To acquire a Trezor it is very important to only buy it at source. Buying a Trezor from any other source exposes you to risks of losing your crypto.
- Go to https://trezor.io/ and then to:
Get your Trezor
2. You will be taken to a choice between Trezor One and Model T. We will go with Trezor One. Currently, a Trezor One will cost you about US$70-100.
3. ‘Add to Cart’, on the next screen and continue on. You might like to buy two or three as it is quite useful to have one as a backup in case of loss. Funds can be recovered AS LONG AS YOU REMEMBER YOUR KEY PHRASE AND PIN NUMBER.
4. Press continue and provide all your details in terms of address etc. You will be offered a variety of ways to pay. It is encouraging to see that Bitcoin and Litecoin are two of them..
5. Once you have placed an order and successfully transferred your bitcoin or other funds, the Trezor company will give you a tracing number and inform you that the Trezor has been dispatched..
Installation and Use
You will need to get the Trezor App to run your Trezor once you receive it.
1. This is done by going to:
https://trezor.io/ and then pressing Suite – the button next to Home on the top of the screen.
2. Download the app and then, with your Trezor, wait for the screen to invite you to connect your Trezor.
I had trouble with the cable and had to get another one. This may occur. Don’t panic, just check all your connections.
3. Once you have connected your Trezor you will be invited to write down the seed phrase. This consists of twenty four words and MUST be kept in a safe place. It enables whoever has it to access your funds – assuming they also know your PIN (personal identification number).
4. The PIN also has to be put into the app. Trezor has an interesting way to do this which does not require you to touch the keys on your computer except your mouse / touchpad. If you have a keystroke monitor spying on you, they will not be able to gain access to your PIN.
5. Once you have set everything up and copied down all your codes it is time for you to start filling your wallet. This is easy enough to do and can be done from the Lightning Network (see our article about Lightning) or other wallets.
6. The Trezor application is quite sophisticated, unlike the actual Trezor which is rather like something you might have got as a toy in a cornflake packet 40 years ago. To access the app, once you have connected your Trezor via the port, you will have to key in your pin. \
Summary
Sending and receiving bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies with Trezor is a fairly simple process and a very nice feature is you are in control of how much you want to spend sending it, That is to say you can control the fee structure. It is interesting to note how little it actually costs to send bitcoin if you do it in this manner. Exchanges must be making quite a lot of money from the fees they charge customers to move Bitcoin around. I sent 19 dollars worth of bitcoin for 3 cents. It took a long time to arrive – around 4 hours – but it is very, very cheap compared with exchanges. In addition, you don’t have to go through KYC, permission to send or any danger of being cut off from your funds, Trezor gives you true freedom to move your money around.
Trezor offers true believers in permission-less, seamless, movement of money/bitcoin a real choice.
Trezor has a YouTube channel filled with useful resources, including this one:
